The Easter Prepping Blog for Online Retailers Across the Globe

Lent is here. Valentines, ironically, shared the same day this year. And Easter is 26 days later. Let’s not look at Valentines at the moment. You ought to have prepared for that last month. (And in any case celebrations are banned in a good many countries.) For Easter, however, your prepping time should ideally start…today!

Easter is the third biggest revenue generating holiday after Christmas and Thanksgiving. So with the festival less than a month away, naturally you need to be mining this sales season.

Last year we discussed how Halloween sales ought to be worked to get the best out of that season. Now let’s break it down for Easter and see what preparations need to be repeated, and what festival-specific ones need to be taken into consideration.

Random Easter Stats

Average amount spent last Easter in America:

• $19.3 billion

Average spent per person:

• $146

Easter sales from Dutch supermarkets in 2016:

• €776 billion

UK sales:

• £775 million

Eggs purchased in Austria during Easter

• 50 million

Things typically bought every Easter:

• Chocolate Easter eggs
• Non-chocolate Easter candy
• Easter bunnies
• Easter lilies
• Jelly beans

Miscellaneous (hot cross buns and other region-specific sweet breads, Easter meal roast lamb and ham, eggs, decoration, costumes etc.)

Easter is the third biggest revenue generating holiday after Christmas and Thanksgiving. So with the festival less than a month away, naturally you need to be mining this sales season.

Last year we discussed how Halloween sales ought to be worked to get the best out of that season. Now let’s break it down for Easter and see what preparations need to be repeated, and what festival-specific ones need to be taken into consideration. Now that we know the numbers, Let’s get to work on what must be done this year to cash in on more sales.

1. Leverage the holiday spirit and create excitement

You can do this by having an Easter egg hunt. Decide on a suitable “egg” for your audience, the kind of clues you are going to leave them, and let them know what prizes the winners will get (e.g. a promo code, discount, gift etc.). Obviously, you need to send out fliers to subscribers to build up the anticipation and to basically let them know what’s in store for the Easter season. A creative egg hunt will not only attract customers to the site but can also churn conversations around it on social media, leading to more traffic.

2. Create the Easter menu

You must dedicate one page specifically to Easter products, and products that you can advertise as Easter products. It could even be a separate page. This Easter landing page should be graphically themed to whet the appetite, but must be cluttered or confusing. Even though it is a seasonal page, ensure you are still sticking to standard categories that help navigate – e.g. Easter clothes for children, Easter toys, Easter décor, Easter gift baskets etc. Anything can be included in this Easter section so long as it is well categorised and in some sense related to the season.

3. Make it fun for them to return each day

Engaging content related to the season can keep visitors / customers hooked. For instance, if you are a kitchen and dining products supplier, a grocery store or a bakery, you can put out content about the traditional Easter foods of different countries, how they evolved to what they are now, how the Easter bunny came along, quick, easy and detailed recipes for some of those traditional dishes etc. Create lingering interest by putting one up each day – Greek today, Dutch tomorrow, Russians day after, and so on. That way they know what to expect and are waiting for it. You can even subtly link your store products to these bits of trivia, for example, by letting them know how you provide the goods to create those recipes.

Another way to quickly cinch a customer is to offer different deals every day (with deadlines, of course).

4. Make some of the traditionally charged options free

As an online retailer there are some standard trimmings that you offer with the products you sell – like gift wrapping, shipping etc. During the holiday season everyone is out sending gifts by the dozen. To make it special for the customer and make them feel a little less wistful, offer free gift wrapping. You could also offer free shipping, either for all orders or for purchases over a certain bill value, and subsequently subsidised shipping fees for bills that don’t meet the free-shipping bill amount. Another fabulous idea – great for shoppers as well as for stores – is to offer bundles. This is a quick and certain sell because it saves people the hassle of putting together an assorted parcel themselves, it is all inclusive, and it serves as a healthy-sized gift option to gift to families and friends. It could include all of the standard things or you could offer a few bundle options based on size or relationship – e.g. a big gift basket for a whole family, a bundle for a spouse or sibling, or mini-packages for office staff.

5. Do something about your e-mails

Just remember it is the holiday season and e-mails can go unnoticed or ignored if crafted without any crackle. A few things to remember:

• If the subject line is boring, trite, redundant, tepid or quotidian, no one will bother opening it
• Compose and test subject lines, content and CTAs
• Personalise e-mails using geo-targeting, demographics, priority customer lists etc.
• Use visuals to create a sense of exciting urgency. [For instance, one online retailer used an animation of a cracker almost burning out to emphasise the deadline of the sale. Another retailer used chocolate bunnies – a big and full bunny with the sale date and bigger discount offer; a medium and nibbled up bunny for the next day and a smaller discount; and a tiny mangy bunny for the last sale date and the smallest discount. Just remember that the visuals impact the buyer more than words ever could.]

Whist being caught up in the storm of the busy season, don’t forget to

• Keep a separate paid advertising campaign that can be monitored closely and that can deliver data and inference about how you did this season.
• Make it possible for shoppers to buy even after the festival is over.

And with that, you’re fairly well armed to tackle Easter 2018!